1/20/08

As the owner of your blog or website you are officially the main webmaster, unless you're having someone else perform the duties for you. With that task on your shoulders you can become a true stats guru. The Monetizer has been checking various blog stats even more than before, as search engine traffic has been on the upswing for them. It's good to know what people are looking at or for, as well as where they are coming from and other unique viewing/visiting habits.

Many people recommend Google Analytics, The Monetizer included. However you will most likely want to add Stat Counter as a supplement to it. I recently found out about this from RetireAt21.com, which publishes a list of young entrepeneurs. StatCounter offers a free stat analysis code you can plug right into your blog, and they make it painless and easy. For free you get a total of 500 logs (visitor paths) a day, to show you the various visitors and habits. There's also paid subscriptions, should your site receive more daily traffic.

(Where are your visitors coming from?)

I find the stats that StatCounter provides quite comprehensive info and it updates quicker than Analytics seems to. The interface is smooth and it's pretty interesting to see exactly where each visitor is coming from or what search terms brought traffic. You may be surprised to see Russian or European search engine traffic, or that a certain term brought someone to your blog. It may even tell you that you need to blog about certain keywords or phrases, ASAP, as traffic is coming to you for that. Also, StatCounter will help you gauge your various advertising and marketing ventures that you're using to promote your blog. For example you might notice that using a signature in a certain forum is bringing you extra traffic. From there you can tweak and continue with your promotional efforts.

I also recommend that when you're adding any of your blogs/sites to be tracked, that you put your personal IP address into the spot StatCounter has for IPs. This will block out your own visiting stats and help give you a better idea of visits. Otherwise if you're the type to constantly check on the look of your blog or posts you've done you'll taint the results. To get your IP, one of the easiest ways is to visit IPChicken.com. It will immediately tell you you're unique IP, and then you can copy/paste that into the appropriate box on StatCounter.

If you want to be truly in charge of stats analysis for your blog, head over and register for the free StatCounter. It makes for a great supplement to Google Analytics for measuring your site visitors and which keywords or posts are receiving attention.